Dave’s Picks: Toilers

Terrebonne hosting fundraising tournament
May 29, 2012
Cecile Brou Mongrue
May 31, 2012
Terrebonne hosting fundraising tournament
May 29, 2012
Cecile Brou Mongrue
May 31, 2012

Most interviews with young bands contain the unremarkable admission that attracting the opposite sex was the prime motivation for picking up the axe or microphone. Then one or more botched affairs later, broken hearts provide fodder for hurtin’ and cheatin’ songs. They often pack it in when cold reality hits and stardom becomes the dream they wake from. But a few of the chosen (or cursed) ones know that music is their calling, for better or worse.


PAUL THORN took a winding route to his current job. He boxed professionally for more than 10 years, having once fought Roberto (“Hands of Stone”) Duran and lived to tell about it. He worked in a furniture factory near his home town of Tupelo, Miss., for a few years before being discovered by a traveling talent scout. He made a couple records for a major label but now puts out product under his own imprint, Perpetual Obscurity, which shows you the sensibility of the guy as well as giving away where I got the idea for this column.

He’s got real songwriting skills, rarely interpreting others’ work. His new one WHAT THE HELL IS GOIN’ ON? is all covers, however. And yet they all sound as if he could have written them.


His recent interview on NPR reveals a man comfortable not only in his own skin, but also his body, soul and heart. He calls these “deep cuts” (meaning not obvious), and they all do indeed get inside to the core, and quickly.


Thorn’s voice and articulation are like slightly heated caramel, dripping out thick and sweet. His touring band provides the excellent backing here, augmented by Elvin Bishop and Delbert McClinton on a couple of tunes; the mighty wind of the redoubtable McCrary Sisters blows with gospel fervor throughout. Lindsay Buckingham’s “Don’t Let Me Down Again” (off of his pre-Fleetwood Mac duet with Stevie Nicks) gets matters started with a loping trot, putting a backwoods spin on what was a British-sounding original. “Snake Farm” struts in next with its only-in-the-south tale of a love object’s workplace, scary as it is funny (courtesy of Ray Wylie Hubbard). Buddy and Julie Miller’s “Shelter Me Lord” gets a full-on revival treatment (Thorn’s dad was a Pentecostal preacher). He stays in the church, musically if not lyrically, for the following “Shed a Little Light.”

Bishop’s title cut is just as you’d expect: a litany of the world’s woes and conundrums strung out with some of the nastiest slide and tastiest picking to be found anywhere. Louisiana’s Bobby Charles and The Band’s Rick Danko penned “Small Town Talk,” a welcome relief from the intensity surrounding it. It’s dead-on assessment of human nature is timeless.


Free’s (!) “Walk In My Shadow” is cock-of-the-walk strutting with no apologies (“You make me hungry/You make me weak/You’re like a hot biscuit I wanna eat”). Allen Toussaint’s “Wrong Number” is given a sympathetic reading, with Thorn’s guttural drawl getting as far afield from Aaron Neville’s angelic croon as is possible.


“Bull Mountain Bridge’s” story of a pot-growing Lothario getting crossways with a local Klan thug features McClinton trading verses and a chorus of what sounds like dozens:

“Take him on down below the Bull Mountain Bridge


Tie his hands and throw him in the river


We might as well give him his farewell party tonight

Knock him in the head, he’s better off dead


Break his arms, throw him in the river


If anybody asks, just tell them he committed suicide.”

“Jukin’” is all rollicking R&B, with nary a thought past partying. The remarkably tender “She’s Got Crush On Me” (penned by session guru Donnie Fritts) piles detail upon detail with the title’s conclusion coming like a sweet awakening. Barn-burning out the exit door is “Take My Love With You’s” mission, at which it succeeds in spades.

Thorn calls himself an “underground, independent” artist, and he does so with hardly any regret. Like a man.

Jon Dee Graham, Freedy Johnston and Susan Cowsill are definitely lifers, each one having come to their present circumstances by differing paths. Graham was a member of The Skunks and The True Believers and has now been solo for longer than he was a band member. Johnston cashed in his assets in his mid-30s to finance his muse-following. Cowsill knew fame (and hopefully, some fortune) as a member of her (real) family’s band, the precursors of the artificial construct, The Partridge Family.

They’ve gotten together as THE HOBART BROTHERS AND LIL’ SIL HOBART and recorded AT LEAST WE HAVE EACH OTHER, a title that could be mistaken for self-pity if these guys weren’t so smart and cool. The Hobart name comes from the industrial dishwashers found in the diners and restaurants they’ve worked in at times to support their music habits. Graham and Johnston had written some songs together that all featured working-class sentiments, tough luck and a touch of despair. Cowsill was recruited after they saw her perform at a festival, and she brings some needed sunshine to the hardscrabble proceedings.

To call Graham’s voice gravelly is an insult to gravel; it’s a distant second to his guitar skills. But he wrings the best out of it when he growls through his lead singing chores. Johnston’s is a big contrast, thin and high-pitched but pleasant enough. Cowsill is a revelation here – her phrasing and timing are thrilling and have to be influenced by her years of living in New Orleans, where funk and soul are in the air and water. She’s got a yearning quality in her tone that doesn’t come close to cloying.

The songs are of course top-drawer, and they’re executed with élan. “Ballad of Sis (Didn’t I Love You)” is a great beginning with Cowsill exhibiting all the chops I just spoke about. “Why I Don’t Hunt” is some swamp rock that Creedence would claim proudly. Cowsill brings Graham from the abyss with her clear alto. Johnston’s “Sweet Senorita” is lilting Tex-Mex with the sort of melody and chord changes that lesser talents would kill for. “I Never Knew There Would Be You” summons ghosts of pop-family glory, which the grit of Graham’s guitar and Cowsill’s full-grown woman pipes save from bubblegum status.

“All Things Being Equal” gets down to the brass tacks of what some call class warfare, but what is actually some hard-won populism and common sense and dignity. Graham is in full-throated roar and righteous in his message. “Almost Dinnertime” has a short story’s worth of telling details that should jar most folks’ memory banks about childhood and play. But be watchful for that last verse, as the man wakes up abruptly to his current state. “First Day on the Job” captures that anxiety-ridden eight hours with pointillist accuracy. “Soda Pop Tree” is a piece of completely irresistible pop that’ll melt the hardest heart. “The Dishwasher” brings it all home – blue-collar blues, with a love story at its core.

I’m glad as hell that THE IGUANAS are still together, and a little surprised. They’ve had some time in the spotlight, albeit a medium-wattage one. These NOLA boys have pumped out their special blend of limber rock and Latino stylings for about 20 years, and they’ve just come out with SIN TO SIN. It’s a short one, with only eight songs clocking in at 32 minutes, but it’s a rousing full-blooded effort. They were rocked (in a bad way) by The Storm, and their last one was wistful and quiet by their standards. This is one more for the dance floor or car radio.

“Sick” is borderline novelty (as in, “You make me…”) until you remember the city’s long tradition of cutting humor. It also kicks butt. “Pocho” shows off Rod Hodges’ better-than-I-remembered guitar skills to great effect and some slinky sax. “Te Espera Alla El En Bar” is a lovely slow tango. “Won’t Sit Down” features some sly bossa nova observations about boy-girl follies. “Waiting for the Gin to Hit Me” is a cover, but one the band has an obvious respect for. It’s got some serious regret amid the damn-it-all sentiment. And more killer guitar. “Todo Combria” is a short closer and sounds like the crime scene caused by the previous song’s debauchery.

Yes, Los Lobos does kind of the same Anglo-Hispanic thing, but these locals have the secret weapon of their hometown to invigorate them. Hence, everything they do is gonna be … very funky.

Keep on, keepin’ on.

– Dave Norman is a local attorney who has written or participated in various critiquing endeavors in the past (movies, restaurants) but who believes now has found his real niche as a music critic. In his opinion.

Paul Thorn, a Tupelo, Miss., native and professional boxer for more than 10 years, released “What the Hell is Goin’ On?,” a compilation of “deep-cut” cover songs.

COURTESY | PaulThorn.comWhat the Hell is Goin’ On?COURTESYAt Least We Have Each OtherCOURTESYSin to SinCOURTESY